The airlines were also directed to avoid similar or confusing call signs, the minister said.

The number of suchincidents was 28 last year and 32 in 2016, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

To prevent and minimize such incidents, a system ensuring a flexible use of airspace and safety management was implemented at the airports, along with coordination procedures laid down to hand over operation from one unit to another, he added.

The airlines were also directed to avoid similar or confusing call signs, the minister said.

He added that the Airport Authority of India (AAI) had started implementing a project for harmonizing the upper airspace of the four "flight information" regions in the country.

Under the project, the airspace above 25,000 feet will be controlled from the air traffic control centers in the four metros.

While the harmonization of airspace of the Chennai and Kolkata flight information regions was completed, for Delhi and Mumbai, it would be taken up in the near future, the minister said.

To a separate question about an incident of near-miss over Maharashtra on January 28, Sinha said the planes had come within 700 feet of each other and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau was probing the occurrence as a "serious incident".

Of the two aircraft, one was an IndiGo plane from Hyderabad to Raipur and the other was an Emirates plane from Singapore to Dubai. The incident had happened over the Nagpur airspace.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)